Sarmatian horses

[Alanus]

Michael and all,

There does seem to be confusion in the names, but the Heavenly Horse came from the Ili Valley (as you mentioned). I think the name "Heavenly Horse" may have simply come from the mountain range that ran along the back of the Ili Valley.


[attachment=7035]ilirivervalley.jpg[/attachment]

The range is the "Tian Shan"... the Heavenly Mountains.

Zhang Qian and Sima Qian have the same first name but come from different families, the Zhang gens and Sima gens. Hungarians also write their first name last.

[Michael Kerr]

Hi I know this is a bit off topic but I found this article about an Indian(sub-continent) breed of horse called Marwari horse. Although bred in India it was trained to help fight elephants or more precisely to enable the rider to kill mahout. Shows versatility of horses for combat and interesting. I know topic is what horses Sarmatians may have used, but I think there would be some Central Asian blood in these horses.

http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/play/...nts-630647

Alanus, I like that image of the Ili Valley. I can picture this place with the mountains in the background as a setting for the movie Shane.
I can see whoever occupied this beautiful valley would have to fight to keep it as it is a contrast to a lot of the steppes landscape of arid plains and desert areas. Good for semi nomads move to higher ground in summer and lowlands in winter.

Regards
Michael Kerr

[Alanus]

Michael, Moi, and all

Thanks for the link on the Indian horse breed.
Yes, the Ili River Valley was nearly Shangri-la. Of course, the Wusun eventually lost it to the Xiong-nu... and that started their northwestern trek that ended with the Alanic incursions along the Danube. As you mentioned previously, one of the Roxolani kings gave the prized horse to Emperor Hadrian; and we would think it was a "Heavenly" one. mile:

By the way, genetics experts have pinpointed the origin of the common apple to the Ili River Valley, and I believe prized apples are still grown there. Also, a recent Chinese dam construction in that area has caused an "emergency" archaeological dig there. But there is no official published report as of yet. :dizzy:

[Vindex]

Hi I know this is a bit off topic but I found this article about an Indian(sub-continent) breed of horse called Marwari horse. Although bred in India it was trained to help fight elephants or more precisely to enable the rider to kill mahout. Shows versatility of horses for combat and interesting. I know topic is what horses Sarmatians may have used, but I think there would be some Central Asian blood in these horses.

http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/play/...nts-630647 Michael Kerr

Michael

I am sure I have seen a reference to the use of the Marwari horses in the early days of the British Army taking up polo in India (Empire India was India and Pakistan as we know it now, of course). I will go and look it up! If I am right it perhaps extends the pedigree of these brave horses back to my favourite form of mounted violence :-) and why they are still used in polo today.

[Michael Kerr]

Hi Alanus,just another thing I found out about Ili Valley and Alans/Wusun. The Alaunt (even sounds like an Alan dog) which in ancient times was a shepherd dog originated there. Quite huge and was used to guard cattle and sheep and big enough to take on a solitary wolf. Losses of livestock to predators hit nomads hard. I think like horses dog breeds have changed but now found mainly in Caucusus Mountains where the some Alans settled. It was also known as Sarmatian Mastiff and was ancestor to modern Molossan breeds in Balkans. People try to say Molossans originated in Balkans and spread east but with the flow of people travelling the other way that seems unlikely. Apparantly Alans prized these dogs and breeding them was a healthy business. Also Taigans were another breed of retriever that when birds or rabbits were shot they would retrieve the kill and I suppose the arrow, usually from water (which would have been useful for any Roxolani hunting on the Danube Delta wetlands). I was surprised to find out that ancestor of the poodle originated in Central Asia and was a working retriever before the French started breeding them into the pampered pets they now are (actually I like poodles). The Afghan I couldn't believe although it doesn't look so menacing, when trained in packs were used to bring down wolves as well. They used their speed and worked together to nip at the hindquarters of a wolf till it tired. I know dogs have got nothing to do with topic but I have been trying to find out about hunting techniques on Steppes and shepherd dogs and hunting dogs were important features of nomad life. Like you mentioned in another thread Falconry was popular. Even modern day Kazaks have eagles that can apparently bring down wolves. Sorry again for digressing from original topic.

Thank you Moi any information would be useful. I noticed in the article I posted that one of the reasons they nearly died out was the British didn't like the look of them and thought there was something wrong with them genetically and replaced them with Australian horses which I assume would be Walers which some feel were descended from the Cape horse as all the original horses brought to Australia from England with the First Fleet died and it was more feasible to replace them with horses from South Africa than England.
Below is image of Kazakh and his eagle

[attachment=7049]kazakheagle2.jpg[/attachment]

Regards
Michael Kerr

[Alanus]

Hello, Michael

Great picture of the Kazakh and his eagle. Quite a bit of Indo-Iranian blood in the Kazakhs, despite the official nationalistic stance of being totally Turkic.

There is a town in Spain that has the Alaunt (aka Alanus) on its offical seal. These were BIG dogs, I think. The retriever idea makes sense; and I'm sure the Massagetae must have had them around the winding Aral delta of the Araxes River, also the home of the "fish-eaters" of Herodotus.

What we are seeing-- with these dogs and horses-- is ancient proof of selective breeding, far in advance of Phillip's racehorse. :whistle:

[koechlyruestow]

Michael, interesting link with the Marwari horse. They will probably have been linked with the horses from Central Asia as you suggest, because India always got most of its horses from there, even under the Mughals local horse-breeding could not possibly keep the army supplied (Gommans Mughal Warfare).

About the low opinion of the British of local Indian horses, this may have been caused by local stock suffering from the dwindling supply of Central Asian horses, but most of all, the English expected a horse to be big. That had a lot to do with the specific use of horses in European warfare, very different from its use in the Middle East and South Asia. European horses were used for both tactical and strategic mobility, in South and West Asia horses were only used for tactical mobility, while a horseman rode to the battlefield on a mule or dromedary camel, leading his horse.

For obvious reasons, everybody is always going on about "big", "heavy", "well-built" horses as soon as the Asian armoured cavalry is mentioned, but such horses have never existed, the Asians being perfectly satisfied with the performance of their small, fast and agile horses. There were some in the British and the French army who vainly tried to convince their respective military establishments that, at least in the colonies, they should adopt the superior, small horses and support the cavalry with mule-trains, but to no avail. As a result, the European cavalry was strategically no more mobile than its infantry, the marching foot-soldiers soon catching up with the cavalry on their exhausted horses (Junkelmann Reiter Roms).

As the Uhlans, Hussars, Cossacks and other cavalry units on small horses proved again and again, the nimbleness of these horses gave their riders an advantage when confronting a heavy dragoon on his great clod of a horse. In fact, the lance fell out of general use exactly because the light and agile horses needed for the use of this weapon were simply too rare and expensive in Europe.

[Michael Kerr]

Hi Eduard, I thought the article would appeal to some members. I think light cavary with horses bred for speed and endurance were always the mainstay of Central Asia cavalry and I don't pretend that I know a lot about archery but I think the introduction of the hunnic bow helped reduce the effectiveness of Roxolani and Alan heavy cavalry although still effective against the Romans. As you mentioned about access to new central Asian blood in horse breeding I often wonder that after about 80 years of isolation in Hungary from acquiring new stock via the Roxolani for their horse herds affected the quality of Iazyges horses.

Regards
Michael Kerr

[Vindex]

I feel that a lot of the acceptance of a horse's performance as a cavalry mount has to do with the environment from which the cavalry come.

If you have very long distances to travel and then have to skirmish/fight at the end of it, the "lighter" bred, good endurance, smaller horses is just the thing.

If you have limited country (in comparison) heavy going (most of parts of Europe) and different tactics in your cavalry manual (direct charges), you are going to want a horse that'll carry the armed/armoured man and flatten the opposition.

British yeoman cavalry regiment mounts were probably only one up from the draught animals they used on their land, with a bit of lighter blood to breed a decent hunter, so only covering the hunt country in a day (a gentleman hunted at least two horses in his day in the field). Even today Baileys, the Huntsman's bible in the UK, will tell you what type of horse you need for which particular county in the UK you can have the best day's hunting with.

[koechlyruestow]

I agree Moi, however

If you have a long distance to travel and then have to fight at the end of it, the best thing is either to travel to the battlefield on a riding horse and there mount a war-horse (Eurasian steppes and medieval Europe), or to travel to the battlefield on an ass, a mule or a dromedary camel and there to mount on a war-horse (West and South Asia).
Early modern European cavalry did the next best thing, using their horses both to carry their riders to the battlefield, and then to carry their riders on the battle-field. Even though those European horses were much bigger and stronger than the Asian horses and the distances to be covered in Europe were much smaller than the distances in Asia, this was very hard on the poor critters and led to severe losses in horses.

[Vindex]

And then we have to add mounted infantry into the equation Ride to the battle and fight on foot.

I know there is evidence for decurions having more than one horse, but the concept of travelling to a battle on one mount and fighting with another for all cavalry really does extend the number of animals which require forage (even mules have to eat!). Is this a supposition on your part, Eduard, or found in accounts? I don't think the Crusaders had more than one horse, did they? Remounts, yes, but not hacks then war horses.

(although, again, in old English hunting you did exactly this and rode a covert hack to the meet then got on your hunter brought up by your groom))

[koechlyruestow]

Well, I already knew the nomads on the Eurasian steppes did not ride the same horse again for two to three days, and al-Jahiz differentiates between his Tukhari war-horse and the ordinary Turkish riding-horse. In the Middle East, leading the horses while riding on mules, dromedary camels, or - when making forced marches - on special riding horses, seems to have been the normal practise. Before the coming of the dromedary, the ass was the usual strategic mount for the soldiers of the Midle East, the Persian asses and mules are mentioned by Herodotus. If you want to know more and I am allowed to advertise, War in History has declared its intention to publish a series of articles of mine, Studies on Mounted Warfare in Asia. The first will probably come out next year.
I do not know much about medieval Europe, but I found the palfrey's of the medieval knight in The Medieval Sourcebook.

Junkelmann, during his march from the mouth to the origin of the Rhine equipped as a principate period horseman, would only ride his horse for a couple of miles and then walk in front of it for the next couple of miles. For one, riding without stirrups is hard on your hips (that is why the Persians rode their asses side-saddle, to the amusement of the Greeks, effeminate!), but also, to avoid arriving at your next destination on horses too tired to give a demonstration. I saw them at Nijmegen, so they had only just started, and their Camarque ponies were already too tired to do all the excercises, they shirked as much as possible and fell asleep as soon as they were left alone for a few minutes.

[Michael Kerr]

Hi, just on my earlier post on page 2 of this thread about confusion between Wusun horses and Ferghana horses and title "Heavenly Horses". Since then I purchased Sima Qian "Records of the Grand Historian" and Sima Qian answered my question . "When Wusun envoys from Ili Valley arrived with horses to exchange for Chinese bride, they were of an excellent breed. The Han Emperor called these Heavenly Horses. Later however he obtained "the Blood Sweating Horses" from Dayuan/Ferghana which were even hardier. He therefore changed the name of the Wusun horses to "Horses from the Western Extremity" and used the name "Heavenly Horses" for the horses of Dayuan/Ferghana. A bit of a diplomatic "Slap in the face" for the Wusun.

Regards
Michael Kerr

[Alanus]

Michael,

Perhaps a slap in the face, but initially the Wusun got the best Chinese princess... and after she died, the second best princess... while the the Johnny-Come-Lately Yue-chi got the third best. :whistle:

[Michael Kerr]

Hi Alanus, you are right of course, the Wusun got a Han princess for the cost of 1000 horses when the wealthiest Wusun had herds of up to 5000 horses, and they probably couldn't care less what the Han called their horses and the Ferghana breed were picky eaters one of the Han envoy's mentioned that the people of Ferghana loved their wine and their horses loved their alfalfa. The envoys brought back grapes and alfalfa and they were planted on lands surrounding emperor's summer palace. I suppose what Wusun really wanted were gifts so leader could distribute them to ensure loyalty of his tribe/clan. I thought Ferghana horses were extinct but I found this article about "Blood Sweating horses" below

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subcl...8&cid=1103

Here is another article giving the history of China's quest for "Heavenly Horses"

http://www.karakumstud.com/web/KaraKum.n...NKH-7E9K24

Speaking of the Wusun, and this is only speculation on my part. I read in a couple of books about a large community of "Alans" supposedly living on the coast opposite Formosa. if true could these have been Wusun maybe patrolling this part of the coast against pirates or invaders. If they were the most eastern of Alan subgroups couldn't they or some of them headed east instead of west, maybe encouraged by Chinese like Romans did with goths and Alans in Europe. Allow whole groups including families to settle in lands under threat or uninhabited because of war or threat of invasion. Just a thought anyway.
Regards
Michael Kerr